That’s probably as automated as one can expect the process to get.
BTW, my ophthalmologist doesn’t do the “Is A better or is B better?” while switching back and forth between two lenses. Instead the machine she has now shows two images at the same time so I can compare them.
My eye doctor uses one of these, in this exact way. It gives a starting point, and some objective measurements before the more subjective process.
My optometrist does this, but also still does the 1 or 2 thing. I get the impression she has all the cool tools, but she also uses some of the older techniques as a check, maybe.
In the United States, the Eyeglass Rule is enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, and does indeed require optometrists and ophthalmologists to provide a copy of the prescription at the close of the exam.
I have NEVER been in an optometrist’s shop like this. All of the ones locally collect my insurance information and bill my health insurance company for the eye exam; if I don’t have coverage, it’s cash on the barrelhead, regardless of whether I’m buying glasses from them or elsewhere. (Of course, in my state opticians can’t legally write a prescription anyway; they have be an optometrist [OD] or ophthalmologist [MD/DO]. Opticians fit glasses to a prescription written by somebody else. )
OK. Thanks for the correction. My eye doctors have always provided it, but I guess it partly threw me off that you said, “legally required to hand you” a copy. (My emphasis.) My Dr. emails it, and I’m sure that is OK. I assumed it varies, but you’re clearly right that the requirement to provide it immediately after the exam applies everywhere in the US.
And how does that work with astigmatism?
If the law allows it, Opticians could offer a combination price for eyeglasses and the exam. You can still have your presciption and go somewhere else for glasses, but you are still paying that price. That they don’t do this is probably due to competitive pressure and/or the law.
Easy fix for that: “Free eyeglass adjustment with any purchase over $50”
If I were the optician I’d even say, “If you want to get your glasses online we’re okay with that. We will even professionally adjust them for free if you make any purchase over $50. So if you order your glasses onljne but come to us for cleaning supplies, lanyards, cases, clip-on sunglasses or other accessories, we will adjust them for you free of charge.”
The accessories are where lots of margin is anyway.
In the US, opticians DO NOT refract for eyeglass prescriptions. Only MD’s, DO’s or OD’s (Optometrists, or Doctors of Optometry) do. All would have at a minimum of 4 years of post baccalaureate medical training, opticians are not required to have any specific training. The best ones do, of course,have technical or community college certifications. Opticians are more than eyeglass salespeople. They measure, fit, advise, repair, adjust eyeglasses. They help select the ideal lenses, materials, etc for your specific needs, but they can’t offer a one-priced deal for exam and eyeglasses. The good ones are charged with ensuring the prescription you received from the MD/DO/OD is filled safely and accurately, as does a pharmacist with a medical prescription.
It seems we need some field work here - someone actually walking into an optician’s shop and asking for a minor repair or adjustment for a pair of glasses not purchased there, to test the response. Volunteers?
For the premium you are paying your shop you can buy a blower, all the screwdrivers and screws you’ll ever need and still come out ahead. Hell, you can even screw up a couple of pairs.
The “service” is really overpriced.
Production costs of a pair of frames is ~$2.
To get value for money with service the glasses guys should do on-site repairs with a 1h max response time.
$200 frames are the result of very canny marketing and a functional worldwide monopoly.
Yeah, I’ve done that too, but they always push back on it in that passive-aggressive way they have.
Oh just do an eye surgery. I did mine like 5 years ago and it’s amazing to see everything so clear
I haven’t specifically tested that out and couldn’t even tell you the last time I had to have glasses (other than very new ones) adjusted, but when the few times I have, I don’t recall them looking anything up. This would have been at Lens Crafters (and many, many years ago) and IIRC, they just made the adjustments, cleaned the lenses and sent me on my way.
The seems like old mechanic’s/plumber’s/electrician’s joke (that applies to a lot of other professions) where the customer complains about the price stating that all the person did was turn a screw to which they reply ‘well, I only charged you $2 to turn the screw, the other $198 was for knowing which screw to turn and how much to turn it’.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m planning to get a pair, or rather, at least two pairs of glasses from Zenni next week and I have every intention of attempting to adjust them myself, if they need it, with a blow dryer. But having exactly zero experience adjusting my own glasses, I’m assuming there’s a good chance I’ll make things worse instead of better.
OTOH, that seems to be at least one of the driving reasons for people buying multiple pairs of glasses at a time from online places. They can throw out a pair or two and still pay less than a single pair from an actual store.
I can’t wait to get that done, but the price still needs to come down further. I absolutely loved wearing my Night and Day contacts. Waking up in the morning and being able to see was great. Being able to lay on my side and still watch TV was great. But not multiple thousands of dollars for LASIK great, not yet anyway.
Indeed. Shitty customer service is what finally drove me to try Zenni in the first place.
Back when I was in university, I was visiting a friend in another city when my glasses frames broke. I took it to a Lenscrafters, but it was obviously not the one I’d actually bought the glasses from. I expected the guy there to charge me for a repair, but he said, “No, it’ll only take a minute…” Got my glasses back in a minute, zero charge, even though I had nothing to show I’d bought them at any Lenscrafters store, let alone that guy’s store. That impressed me, and I stayed a customer for many years.
Fast forward about two decades. I changed doctors, and so for the first time since University, I bought from a different store. Then, the day before I was going on vacation, my frames again broke. The place I bought them had in the interim shut down, so I thought I’d go see if Lenscrafters could repair them well enough for me to go on vacation, with the intent that I’d get a new pair from them when I returned. Nope, not possible, the guy in the store told me it was now the explicit policy that they wouldn’t repair anything that hadn’t been bought from them. You’d think they’d figure out that the guy sitting there with his glasses held together by a bit of wire might be in the market for a new pair, but nope, didn’t try to sell me a new pair, didn’t put in any effort at all to recover me as returning customer, just “go away with your broke-ass glasses!”
I literally went straight home, and looked up this “Zenni” place my friends had been telling me about. Put in an order for several pairs, and went on vacation with my shitty broken glasses.
I’ve since bought other pairs from physical stores, but not Lenscrafters. Screw them.
I did it in Poland for like $1.5k for both 
I have not asked for my Zenni glasses to be adjusted or repaired at my local shop, but I’m pretty sure they would do it. They would also probably recognize me as a customer, though. I’m certain my eye doctor would, if she happened to be out in the shop area.
It’s possible they would comment on the quality of the glasses, or the risks of buying online, but they might not.
On the other hand, I would not really feel that comfortable asking that of them if I didn’t buy glasses from them. I try not to use brick and mortar stores as showrooms in general, and especially when I am benefitting not just from seeing stuff in person, but from the expertise of the staff.
All that said, I’ve not had any trouble making the minor adjustments necessary for my Zenni reading glasses to fit properly. I’ve never heated anything up. Even when I was getting my good glasses adjusted at the shop because an earpiece was bugging me, when I worried that I couldn’t tell right away if the adjustment was enough, the person helping me said I could make those small adjustments myself. She said I was welcome to come back in, but it wasn’t necessary, if I just needed to tweak it a little.
Yeah, this is not an option for everyone, for multiple reasons. This is a bit like coming into a thread about a Windows 10 question and saying “Just get a Mac!”
I’ve never gotten any pushback at all.
Finances aside, not everybody’s recommended for surgery; especially when what’s wrong with the eyesight isn’t one simple thing wrong, but multiple problems.
Basically, run frame under hot water and gently hand adjust, may need to do this a few times. Don’t force, just a little at a time. There are online videos.
I’ve bought expensive ‘fitover’ sunglasses only to find that the lenses look like glue has run all around the lenses edges. I had them stored in a wipe, in a case, inside a room. Not in car etc.
I’ve paid over $300 for a pair glasses that were utterly unusable from a LensPro store. But I think it was the optician at that store, just bad luck. They did redo them, and they were better. But I specified NOT reading glasses, but I got READING glasses!!!
Overall happy with Zenni. Sometimes I buy their frames and send to Axon optics for a special lens. Multifocal lenses can be tricky with online dispensing, but Zenni ones were ok.
Here in Australia, replacing lenses in a frame is nearly impossible. Always a hard sell to buy expensive frames as well. Fifty four years of wearing spectacles and having to navigate macular degeneration, glaucoma, migraine and aging changes had me investigate online options. Glad I did. Though I did learn about “fitovers” at an optometrist. But $800 a year for new glasses when I could discern little change in my vision had me wondering. Also never use optometrists except for eye prescriptions. In one ophthalmologist’s practice I ended up only seeing an optometrist who if I was lucky referred me to ophthalmologist. What’s the point?! Especially if you have serious eye issues. I kept having deteriorating vision. During Covid-19 seeing either optometrist or ophthalmologist at one stage was very difficult, especially if you have other issues that are also symptoms of Covid-19. Another optometrist said my deteriorated vision was permanent. However, she did refer me to a different ophthalmologist when I requested it for a third opinion. So I had had four optometrist visits with three optometrists at this stage, [one at the beginning of the year simply to get new glasses due to vision changes]. I saw a Prof of ophthalmology who that day did laser surgery and several visits for this on both eyes and injections for macular degeneration fortunately saw my vision improve to almost the point before it started deteriorating. Now I will only see one optometrist at OPSM to get a prescription that I will take to another to get Zeiss lenses and a special tint for migraine FL-41. [Dresden Spectacles in Australia], perhaps with frame from online or another store or one of theirs. I’ve also ordered some cheap Calabria fitovers to replace the Jonathon Pauls x 2 I bought that look like the lenses have melted at the edges though stored safely. Very disappointed.
I’m getting more and more dissatisfied with the “service” now being provided by so many optometrists in Australia today. Also the way some opticians treat you. No ophthalmologist I’ve seen has ever been that rude to me as a patient. These two bit opticians act like they’re God. In Qld Australia we have not had a case of community transmitted Covid-19 for months, but different places, GP’s, bus drivers etc seem to all have their own set of rules regarding masks, etc. I used store sanitiser on entering a mall as a courtesy gesture. I’m a retired medical microbiologist. I entered a nearby optometrist to look at their wrap around prescription sunglasses frames. A twenty something woman approached me and with hands clasped in front as though to deliver a lecture to a toddler. In a patronizing voice she asked me “if I had heard of this little thing called Covid-19?”. No, I’m deaf, dumb, blind, stupid, uneducated with no access to radio, television, internet, newspapers for the last year. [I knew about Covid-19 in November 2019]. Honestly. I’m normally a polite 67 year old lady, with no obvious sign of any disability apart from spectacles. [I have Ehlers Danlos syndrome Hypermobility type but it is a “hidden” disability and does not involve any loss of intellectual capacity]. Without thinking I just “lost it”. I said
" I don’t like being patronized".
" I’m a microbiogist by education and training".
" F…O" and walked out of the store.
And they wonder why people don’t use them anymore. The previous owners of the store had been great! Never going back.
I bought a pair of cheap polarized fitovers online instead and if they are good I’ll probably buy another pair. In Australia at least there are minimum legal standards for sunglasses as they are really an essential everyday medically necessary item here because of our sun.
Especially if you live in Qld the melanoma capital of the world! You can get melanomas on your retina! They also help to prevent cataracts, macular degeneration, pterygiums, migraines, and other stuff.
I’d much, much, much rather buy online, even though I have high level optical extras medical insurance for spectacles. But I want the FL-41 tint for migraine and macular degeneration vision as it improves contrast. Optometrists have cut their own throats. Medicare here funds for one eye-checkup a year at an optometrist and also covers some of an ophthalmologists fees as well. If you need treatments there is an increasing ‘safety net’ to reduce your expenses after ~$600 at an ophthalmologist. Actually worked out cheaper than the so called ophthalmologist I was NOT seeing. And I was properly diagnosed and treated. Optometrists cannot perform laser surgery or treat macular degeneration.
Anyway, that’s my increasingly sour view of optometrists these days. Though I am sure there are still a few out there who are good. Some still do the Medical Aids Subsidy Scheme for the government without making you feel like a piece of …for example. Others have stopped as it did not pay enough. And this is great for some people’s needs. But not mine unfortunately.
Update: I got my Zenni glasses and the quality for these glasses ($35 with single-vision lenses) was every bit as good as a similar pair (Danny Gokey DG 70) that the optician sells for $150 after my insurance coverage. They quoted a retail price of $419.
I also got a pair of prescription sunglasses from EyeBuyDirect. Also good quality. The polarization jacks up the price a lot, but still only about $70-80 (polarization is a must for driving).
I was so happy with the first pair that I ordered a pair of prescription reading glasses from Zenni, due in 2-3 weeks.
So I got three pairs of high-quality glasses cheaper than what I would have paid for one pair at the optician.
That seems to be a big selling point. Every time someone asks what happens if you don’t like them or they don’t fit right, the person being asked often responds along the lines of ‘you can be three pairs, throw out the ones you don’t like and still come out ahead’.